


The Bride Trilogy: Prologue: Rumple's Day Out

by lexwing



Series: The Bride Trilogy [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Family, Future Fic, Gen, Marriage, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexwing/pseuds/lexwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Bride Trilogy<br/>Prologue: Rumple’s Day Out<br/>Futurefic.  On a trip back to the Enchanted Forest, Rumple tells his teenage daughter the tales of three brides: the Autumn Bride, the Winter Bride, and the Spring Bride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: For a little background on Helena, and on how the characters are now related to each other, it might be helpful, but not necessary, to read my other OUAT story, Troublesome Boy. That one and this one may now be AU, but since it’s the future, who knows? 
> 
> For the record, other than Helena and a few other characters, I own nothing.

 

   “You see, Helena, when your mother tells me I shouldn’t let you keep talking me into things this is exactly what she means,” Mr. Gold told his daughter, his breath making white clouds in the chilly air.

   His daughter paused and raised an eyebrow at him.  “Dad, I said you didn’t need to come.  I could have just gone with Uncle Jefferson.”  She nodded her dark head at the group just ahead of them on the otherwise empty country road.

   “That was never going to happen,” Gold huffed.  He must have said this a bit louder than intended, because Jefferson paused and glanced over his shoulder at them with a grin.

   “No offense,” Gold added hastily to his old friend.

   “None taken,” the Hatter replied.  He tilted his outlandish hat at an even jauntier angle and turned back to his two daughters, Grace and Alice-Rose, and his son-in-law, Henry.

   “I can’t believe after all these years you don’t trust Jefferson,” Helena groused.  “And you don’t trust your own grandson?”

   “Henry has Grace to look after, and they’ll be visiting at Castle Green with Regina.  You don’t want to spend the whole day with _her_ , now do you?”

   “Well, no.  Been there, done that.  This time I want to see something of the land around the place.  I’m fifteen now, you know—I can take care of myself.”

   Gold bit back the sarcastic reply that was on the tip of his tongue, the one about his daughter only having turned fifteen two days before and that she would wander about alone in the Enchanted Forest over his dead body. 

   He’d been unhappy with this whole project from the start.  It was originally supposed to be just a short visit by Henry and his wife, Grace, to visit his adoptive mother and to announce Grace’s pregnancy to that side of the family in person.  Then Jefferson had announced he would be accompanying them, and taking his twelve-year-old daughter, Alice-Rose, to show her where the family had once lived.

   “It’s a project for school,” Alice-Rose had explained to Gold and his wife, Belle.  “We’ve been studying the Enchanted Forest and Mrs. Nolan says I can get extra credit if I write a report.”

   “The old cottage is probably in shambles now, but family history is so important, don’t you think?”  Jefferson had added.  “Besides, it will give Alice-Rose and me something to do while Grace and Henry are with Henry’s mother.”

   Gold had not been exactly surprised to hear the former Mad Hatter say this.  Jefferson and Regina were related now by marriage.  But given their history together he was still not entirely comfortable around her, no matter how much she had reformed.  Jefferson’s attitude towards Regina was much like that of both Gold and Belle: forgive, but never forget, and minimize contact whenever possible.

   Unfortunately Jefferson’s plan had been announced within earshot of Helena.  The adventuresome teenager had been so taken with the idea of the trip, and so jealous that her younger cousin was getting to go when she could not, that she had wheedled and cajoled until her parents had very reluctantly given in to her request to go, too.

   Gold now cleared his throat.

   “When two people each have something the other wants a deal can always be struck.  You decided you had to go along on this little trip.  Fair enough.  Your mother and I want you to be safe.  So the deal is, you get to go, but only if I come along.  Understood?”

   “Yes.”  Helena sighed heavily.  “Fine.”

   He nodded firmly.  After all, the child had not spent more than a day or two in their old world since she was three years old.  She had no real conception of what the place was like.  Helena could sulk for the entire trip, as far as he was concerned, so long as he was around to make sure she stayed safe. 

   Anton the not-so-giant-Giant was waiting for them near the portal.  He had a little house close-by, and ever since Gold and Regina had been able to stabilize this particular portal to make it permanent Anton and the dwarves had taken turns looking after it. 

    The last thing anyone on either side wanted was someone passing through from one world to the other who shouldn’t do so.  Fortunately the portal was in the woods just off a seldom-used road, nowhere near the highway that occasionally brought accidental visitors from the world without magic to Storybrooke. 

     It was one thing for the town’s residents to tolerate the odd lost tourist: they could all act perfectly normal for a day or two.  A cup of mediocre coffee at Granny’s; a drenching rainstorm that blew up out of nowhere; rude treatment from Gold at his shop, and such visitors were usually quickly on their way.  But if one ever accidently fell through into the other world…!   Not, that simply could not be risked.

    “Cold, today, eh?”  Anton now said to them, rubbing his hands together.

   “It is November,” Gold observed.

   “So it is.”  The giant turned to Helena with a grin.  “That was an awesome party the other night.  And that cake?  Wow!”

   “It was pretty great, wasn’t it?”  Helena said with a nod.  “There’s some of it still in the fridge at home.  I’m sure Mom won’t mind if you stop by when you’re off duty here.  The library’s closed today anyway.”

   Gold shook his head.  “Helena…”

   “What?”  She blinked innocently up at him.  “Mom loves feeding people.  Oh, but bring some milk, Anton, because I used the last of it on my cereal this morning.”

   “Will do.  Now, how long do you think you’ll all be gone?”

   “We should be back no later than Wednesday evening,” Henry explained.  “Grace and I will be at Regina’s, and Jefferson and Rumple and the girls will be sleeping at that little inn on the Western Road, if anyone needs to reach us.”

   Anton was jotting all this down.  “Got it.  Doc will be on duty Wednesday so I’ll make sure he knows to expect you back through.”

   The old sorcerer tried not to roll his eyes impatiently.  What would be next, passports?

   “All set,” the giant announced, shoving the notepad into an oversize pocket.  “You all look very nice, by the way.  Even you, Rumplestiltskin.”

   “Dad looks like he’s been shopping at David Bowie’s garage sale,” Helena observed.

   “Young lady, I’ll have you know I always dressed like this in the old world,” Gold retorted.  In fact since he no longer had to be “in character” he’d toned it down a bit, wearing his black dragon skin jacket over a plain white shirt, black leather trousers, and a dark cloak.  Unless they ran into a long flight of stairs he’d probably be able to walk just fine, but he’d brought his old staff with him just in case.

   Jefferson, on the other hand, looked like a walking accident in an upholstery factory.  He’d doned a bright tapestry waistcoat, a frock coat in a contrasting color, a cravat to cover the scar on his throat, and, of course, one of his ubiquitous hats.

   The young people were dressed much more plainly, in homespun dresses for Grace and Alice-Rose and a simple jerkin and trousers on Henry.  Helena had opted for trousers as well, with a simple blouse and sturdy boots.  She had her birthday bow and quiver slung over her shoulders.  None of them had brought more with them than a change of clothes, some bread and cheese if they got hungry, and canteens filled with fresh water, all carried in simple rucksacks.

   It wasn’t as if the residents of the Enchanted Forest had never seen a pair of jeans or sneakers at this point, not with folks passing to and fro between worlds as they did.  But it was still a much more conservative place than the world without magic, and it wouldn’t do for their little party to stand out too much from the crowd.

   “Off you go, then.  Have fun, and watch out for ogres,” Anton told them.

   “Ogres?”  Alice-Rose squeaked as she took her father’s hand.

   “He’s teasing,” her sister soothed.  “Mom killed the last one in this part of the Forest a long time ago.”

   Gold took his daughter’s hand with his left hand, and Henry’s with his right.  Soon all of them were linked together, helpful when portal jumping so no one got lost.

   “Concentrate on the Enchanted Forest,” Gold reminded everyone.  “Close your eyes if it helps.  Focus on where we want to go, and the portal will do the rest.”

   Sure enough a moment later it was shimmering in front of them, arced like a silver rainbow but fluid like water.

   Gold took a deep breath, and stepped through, drawing the others along with him…

    …and then they were on the other side.  They stood on a road, not entirely unlike the one they’d just been on, but cobbled instead of paved.  Tall trees rose up on either side of them.  As they turned to look behind them the portal glittered one last time and then vanished.

   “Cool,” Alice-Rose breathed.  Then her little forehead creased with worry.  “But, Uncle Rumple, if it’s invisible now how do we know it will reappear when we’re ready to go home?”

   “Because I enchanted it to do exactly that.  All you have to do is find your way back to this spot, and think hard, and it will appear for you.”  He ruffled the child’s blonde hair. 

   “Where exactly are we, Dad?”  Helena asked, looking about her and clearly disappointed not to see the land covered with castles and the sky filled with flying horses.

   “The Great Western Road,” he explained.  “It runs all the way through this land, from east to west.  It branches off, of course: head southeast and it takes you to Prince Eric’s lands, and eventually through to Agrabah and the lands beyond the sea.  Just west of here is where Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora live, not far from the ruins of Avonlea where your grandfather Maurice used to rule, Helena.  North is King Aegeus’ domain, and beyond that Scythia.”

   “We definitely want to steer clear of those last two places,” Jefferson observed.

   “That we do,” Rumpled agreed.  “But right now we’re in Snow White and Charming’s old kingdom and that way,” he pointed to the left, “is Castle Green.”

   Clearly the weather had been mild and dry lately because the road was in good shape, Gold observed as they walked.  They were passed by the occasional horse and rider or farm cart, but to his relief no one spared them a second look.

   They spent the next hour walking and listening to Jefferson’s entertaining stories about people he had once known and the places he had once visited in the Forest. 

   Gold didn’t bother correcting Jefferson about any of the details in his stories.  After all, unlike Rumple the poor spinner or the Dark One, Jefferson Hatter in his youth had been charming and funny and thus had been welcome anywhere he went. At least until he had stolen something or kissed the wrong man’s wife, both of which he often had done.  That had been long ago, of course, before Grace’s birth, and before Wonderland had nearly destroyed Jefferson’s mind forever.  Gold was now just relieved to see that his old friend and kinsman seemed genuinely cheerful to be back home. 

   “Tell us again about the time you first met my grandfather,” Henry finally urged.

   “Yeah, that’s a good story,” Alice-Rose agreed as she nibbled on a piece of bread her mother had packed for her.  “Tell it, Dad, please.”

   “Oh, you mean the first time I sought out the Dark One to make a deal?”  Jefferson winked at Rumple.  “In all his scaly, fearsome glory?  Well, I’d…acquired, shall we say, this pair of magic dancing shoes…”

   “ _Cursed_ dancing shoes,” Gold corrected.

   “Well, I didn’t know they were cursed at the time, did I?”  Jefferson protested.

   “If you’d put them on you would have found out soon enough,” the older man retorted.

   “Rumple, credit me with at least some brains, please,” Jefferson said haughtily.  “Now, where was I?  Ah, yes, the shoes…”

   Gold had been there, so he tuned this story out.  Instead he listened to the birds in the trees and the wind through the leaves.  The village he’d been raised in had been deepp within these same woods, and there was something very soothing about being back.  And he was spending time with some of his large circle of loved ones, which of course he hadn’t had when he’d first lived here.

   Finally they came to a twist in the road, where the trees grew sparser and the road began to rise upward to the mountains.  As they rounded the bend Rumple paused and pointed.  “There it is.  Castle Green.”

   “The Dark Castle,” Helena said, coming to stand next to him as the others also admired the view.  The castle was tucked in a narrow valley between mountains, with a commanding view of the lands below it.

   “No, it’s dark no more, dearie,” he corrected.  “It’s just a big, drafty house now.” 

   “Yeah, Mom always says it was a real pain to clean,” she observed.  “Even with your magic to help her out.”

   Gold laughed.  “That it was.  Why do you think I needed a housekeeper in the first place?”

   “Dad, come on,” she said with a grin.  “Nobody buys that ‘the Dark One needed a housekeeper’ part of the story.”

   “Don’t they?”

   “Nope.  Alice-Rose, back me up on this.”

   “No one does,” the younger child chimed in.  “Henry’s book says you took Aunt Belle because you were lonely.”

   “And, really Rumple,” Jefferson observed, “if all you’d wanted was a housekeeper you would have been much better off making a deal with some sturdy peasant women with no teeth than with a young noblewoman who probably didn’t know a feather duster from a soup pot at the time.”

   “He does have a point, Grandpa,” Henry said with a laugh.

   Gold briefly allowed himself to remember the nearly inedible concoctions Belle had produced from the kitchen the first few weeks she’d been with him.  He’d always managed to choke down a few spoonfuls out of politeness before magicing his plate clean as soon as Belle’s back was turned. If he hadn’t finally gotten her a cookery book from town he might have starved.

   “None of you were there at the time, so you don’t get to guess at my motivations,” was all he said now.

   He felt surprisingly little attachment to the castle now, even if technically it was still his.  It had never felt like a home, save for those few precious months Belle had been with him.  When he’d been catapulted back to this land he’d never for a moment considered moving back in.  For one thing, it held too many terrible memories; and for another Robin Hood and his Merry Men were using it as an occasional base of operations and Gold hadn’t felt like taking the trouble to cast them out.

   The place had been looted anyway, Neal had told him, and the gardens so badly overgrown they were threatening to pull the place down stone by stone.  Oddly enough when Regina had gone to live there with Robin she’d kept the overgrown gardens.  But she had used magic to shape them into living walls that wrapped around the castle like sheltering wings.  That, combined with the green clothing often worn by the Merry Men, had given the place its new name.

   It was Robin and Regina’s home, not his.  And he felt just fine about that.

   “Halt, who goes there?”  A young voice called out from a tree overhead, interrupting his musings.  He looked up to see a black-haired boy of perhaps eight dangling from a lower limb.

   “Stand and deliver, ye harlots!”  The boy cried, dropping to the ground before them and brandishing a wooden sword.

   Grace and Henry burst out laughing, but Helena put her hands on her hips in mock outrage.

   “Chauncey Hood!  What did you just call me?”  She demanded.

   “Uh…” said the boy.

   “’Varlets.’  He meant ‘varlets,’” said another young boy as he emerged from the woods.  This one was a year or two older than the first, but was also dark-haired and handsome. “I told you to wait for me before launching the ambush,” he now told his brother.  “You got it wrong.”

   “Then what’s a ‘harlot,’ Richard?”  Chauncey asked curiously.  “And why is Helena mad at me?”

   “Never you mind that now,” Henry said hastily.  “Come and give your big brother a hug.”

   Both boys rushed to him and hugged him enthusiastically.  They then kissed Grace and Helena on the hands like the gentlemen their father was raising them to be.  Richard looked like he was about to reach for Alice-Rose’s hand as well, but the girl quickly stepped behind her father.

   “Ewww, keep your boy germs to yourself,” she told him. 

   Richard shrugged.  “Suit yourself.  Come on up to the house, everyone!  We weren’t expecting you for a few more hours but Mama’s been baking all morning so there’re fresh cakes for lunch.”

   “I want gingerbread,” Chauncey stated.

   “And gingerbread,” Richard vowed.

   As they followed the boys through the castle gate’s Gold caught Jefferson looking at him with raised brows.  He knew what the Hatter was thinking: is was still always jarring to hear anyone call Regina “Mama.”

   Robin’s son by his first wife, Roland, greeted them in the courtyard.  He was tall and broad-shouldered, but his hair was a lighter brown than that of his younger half-brothers.  They’d clearly caught him in sparring practice for he had his sword balanced across his shoulders.

   They all greeted one another. Gold watched carefully as Roland greeted his daughter.  Belle had said Roland was interested in Helena.  But to his relief Gold did not detect any signs of particular favor in Helena’s expression as the two young people exchanged pleasantries.  Of course perhaps Roland just knew better than to try and spark with a young lady in front of her father…Well, no matter.  They wouldn’t be here any longer than necessary, Gold vowed to himself.

   Regina was waiting for them in the Great Hall.  She still looked beautiful and elegant in her gown and with her dark hair swept up into one of her complicated hairstyles.  But there were laugh lines now softening her face around her eyes and mouth, something that Gold had never seen there before.  In fact she laughed and threw her arms around Henry and his wife as warmly as Belle might have done.

   “You’re early!”  She scolded the couple gently.  “Robin is still in town with Little John, but he’ll be back soon.  Oh, you must all be tired and thirsty from such a long walk.  Rumple, why didn’t you just magic everyone here?”  She demanded. 

   “We wanted to walk, Regina,” Grace told her gently.  “It’s a beautiful day, and we wanted Helena and Alice-Rose to see some of the countryside.”

   “Of course,” Regina said, somewhat mollified.  “Hello, Rumple,” she added hastily.  “Jefferson.  And, my goodness, Helena, it seems ages since I saw you last.  Look how tall you are now!  You look just like your mother.”

   “So I’ve been told,” Helena said politely. 

   Gold was proud of his daughter.  He and Belle had never kept the story of what Regina had done to Belle a secret from Helena.  But they’d never dwelled on it, either.  The past was in the past, Belle had always told her daughter and husband.  Regina was a different person now, and should be judged accordingly.

   “And this is Alice-Rose?  You were a tiny baby the last time I saw you.”  Regina held out her arms, and the child approached her without fear.  “And you look like Grace,” the former queen observed after a moment.  “How old are you now, child?”

   “Twelve.”

   “Ah, so just a year older than my Richard, then.”  Regina shot Gold a look over the top of the child’s head.  As a fellow practitioner of magic Regina had no doubt sensed, as Gold had, the latent abilities Alice-Rose possessed. 

   He shook his head slightly at his former rival as a warning not to bring it up.  Jefferson refused to believe there was anything unusual about his younger daughter, and Gold didn’t see any point in provoking an argument.

   To his relief Regina seemed to understand his expression.

   “Well, you’re all in time for an early lunch.  Roland, please show everyone where they can freshen up and then we’ll all sit down together.  Won’t that be nice?”

   Gold wasn’t sure if ‘nice’ was exactly the word he’d use.  But then he couldn’t use the word he would have chosen in polite company.

 

 


	2. Ch. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to break this into two chapters for easier reading. Sorry for any confusion this may cause!

 

 Fortunately the meal was saved by the arrival, shortly after they’d all sat down, of Robin Hood.  He briefly excused himself to wash up, and then had returned to the table happy to hear all their news.

   Like Jefferson, Robin was welcome wherever he went, but unlike Jefferson Robin was also always welcomed back.  Gold had never met a more forthright, honest man than Robin.  Even in his days as a thief (and that was how Gold had first met him) Robin had always had the most honorable of motives.  He’d stolen an enchanted object from the Dark One to save the life of his then-wife, Marion: that had bought the dying woman enough time to bring Roland safely into the world.  He’d stolen from the wealthy to give to the poor, never keeping more of the plunder than was needed to keep himself and his men fed.  He’d risked his own son’s life to help Bae get to Neverland, with no expectation of reward of any kind.  And when the Dark Fairy had arrived from the West and threatened their world he’d stepped up and led his men in the fight to free the Enchanted Forest.

   Add that to the fact that he seemed able to effortlessly keep Regina happy and calm, and how could Gold ever dislike such a man?

   Take now, for instance.  Over the meal of lake trout and rabbit (all caught by his sons, Robin told them proudly) Henry and Grace had announced their pregnancy.  Regina, as Gold had expected, was as over the moon about it as Belle, Emma, and Neal had all been.  But no sooner had everyone in the Hood family wished the couple their best than Regina began to issue orders.

   “I wish I had some of Henry’s things from when he was a baby, but they were all lost when the first Storybrooke was destroyed.  Still, you should take some of Richard and Chauncey’s baby clothes back with you.  I have so many sweet little things, and of course the boys grew so quickly most of them were barely ever worn.  Oh, and I still have their cradle!  It’s so beautiful: Tuck carved it out of a solid piece of oak and it took three men to carry it up the stairs.  It’ll be like a family heirloom!”

   Grace and her husband exchanged a look.

   “Uh, Mom, that’s great but we wouldn’t have any way to get something that big back home…”  Henry said hastily.

   “Yes, you can.  I’ll magic it over.  Or Rumple can.”

   “No, I will not,” Gold said firmly.

   Regina ignored him.  “You want the best for this baby, don’t you, Henry?  Grace?”

   “Of course we do,” Grace began, “but…”  She looked helplessly around the table, but everyone was suddenly very interested in the plates in front of them.

   “Then you shall have it,” Regina continued.  “Oh, I have so many wonderful ideas.  Now, about the nursery…”  

   “My dear,” Robin said quietly.

   Regina finally paused for breath.  “Yes, my love?”

   “Do you not think Henry and Grace might want to choose some new items for their little one?  After all, they live in such a small place, a…what is it called again, Henry?”

   “An apartment,” Henry said gratefully to his step-father.

   “Yes, an ‘apartment,’’ Robin mused, “in a great city.”  He had only visited the other world once, for his wedding.  He had not cared for it, preferring the open spaces and simpler life of the Forest. 

   “Tuck’s cradle is beautiful, it is true,” Robin continued, “but I do not think it should fit in such a space, do you?”

   Regina gazed at her husband for a long moment.  The old Regina, the original Regina, would have lashed out at him for daring to disagree with her, perhaps tearing out his heart as well.  But this woman just blinked.

   “Of course, you’re right, Robin.  You’re always so practical.  I don’t know what I was thinking.”  Regina was thoughtful for a moment.  “Then, what if I helped pay for a new crib?  There’s still money in my accounts back in Storybrooke.  That way you could pick out whatever best suits your space?”

   The young couple smiled in relief.

   “That would be wonderful, Mom.  Thank you,” Henry told her.

   “We’d love to take some baby clothes back with us, if you can spare any,” Grace added.

   “And when you and the young one come for a visit here he or she can still sleep in our cradle,” Robin said.

   “Yes,” Regina said with a beaming smile.  “When my grandchild comes to visit,” she said again, as if trying out the words and finding them to her liking.

* * *

 

   “That,” Jefferson announced when he, Rumple, Helena, and Alice-Rose, were finally on their way again, “was the most uncomfortable meal I have ever had.  And I used to share a table with a narcoleptic dormouse.”

   “I thought it was tasty,” his daughter countered.  “Regina makes really good gingerbread.”

   “I feel a bit bad leaving Henry and Grace here with her ‘til Wednesday,” Helena said.  “She is awfully bossy, isn’t she?  But Roland promised me he and his dad would keep the peace no matter what.”

   “Did he now,” Gold groused under his breath.  “Well, at least Regina’s finally found someone willing to push back when she shoves,” he said more loudly.  “Even if he’s so subtle about it she hardly knows it’s happening.”

     For a brief moment Gold wondered if that description would not fit he and Belle equally well.  Belle had softened him, shaped him, before he’d even known she was doing it.

   “True love,” Jefferson said with a shrug.  “Who can fathom how it works, or why?  Let’s just be thankful it does.”

   “Indeed,” Gold agreed. 

   “So, where to next?”  Alice-Rose asked eagerly.

   “Well, I think the logical thing to do is to head for the inn.  We can drop our bags and the old homestead is not far from there.  We can be there and back by evening.”  Jefferson took his daughter’s hand as he spoke.

   “Good idea.”  Helena looked at her father expectantly.  “Are we going to hike, or…?”

   “Or what?  Magic, Regina?”  He teased her.

   “Oooh, magic, please,” Alice-Rose said, bouncing on her toes.

   “Much as I hate traveling that way, it would save time,” Jefferson added.

   “And this from a former portal jumper!”  Gold exclaimed.  “But you’re right: at this rate it would be nightfall before we arrived.  So magic it is.”

   He waved his hands, and they were enveloped in smoke.  This smoke was not purple, as it once had been, but a very pale shade of gold.  It was the fruit of the years of hard work he’d done to regain at least some of what had been lost to him.

   When it cleared they were in a meadow.  Sheep were grazing lazily, so lazily that when the four of them appeared out of thin air the animals only grunted at them before going back to their dinner.

   Just beyond the meadow was a stout inn.  Beyond that was the Great Western Road again, splitting off to the west and north. 

   Helena blinked against the sun, reading the sign that swayed above the front door.  “The Inn at the Crossroads,” she read aloud.  “That’s, uh, very original.”

   “But descriptive,” Gold observed.  They went inside and left their bags with the innkeeper, a thin man named Spratt with an enormously plump wife who did all the cooking. 

   Then they went back outside and Gold and Helena waved the two Hatters off on their journey.

   “How far away is Jefferson’s old place, Dad?”  Helena asked as they watched the two disappear across the meadow.

   “About two miles across the meadows and over a little creek.  There’s no real road, but don’t worry: Jefferson knows the way.”

   “Is that where he used to live before…”  She trailed off.

   “Before Wonderland?”

   Helena nodded.  One of the unspoken family rules was that one did not bring up Wonderland or what had happened there in Jefferson’s presence.  Jefferson was stable now, productive, a family man, but it had taken decades of hard work for him to arrive at such a place.  The psychological and emotional damage inflicted by the Red Queen, and then by the Curse, would have killed a lesser man years ago. 

   “No, that place was much deeper in the woods.  And he wasn’t working for me by then.”

   “So you never met Grace’s mother?”

   “No, I did not.” 

   “Grace told me once that her name was Louisa, and that her marrying Jefferson was a bit of a scandal because she came from a much better family than he did.”

   Gold smiled a bit.  “Those kinds of things used to matter a lot here, I’m afraid.  I imagine they still do. Jefferson did try to give up his old ways for her, though, and that could not have been an easy thing for him to do.  Believe me, I know.  And he tried to stay on the straight and narrow for their baby daughter, after she died.  He was successful for a while.”

   “So if who you marry here is supposed to be determined by who you are, what about you and Mom?”

   “What about us?” 

   “I mean, hypothetically, let’s say you hadn’t been the Dark One, and she hadn’t been willing to make a deal with you.  Would you have ever met otherwise?”

   “Dearie, someone like me wouldn’t have been allowed in the same county as someone like you mother.  So, no.”

   “Oh, c’mon.  Not on the street?  Or at a dance?  Or, I don’t know, doing whatever it is single people do here?”

   “Certainly not.  And, besides, in the normal scheme of things I would have been dead of old age long before she was ever born.”

   Helena looked uncomfortable.  “Don’t say that.”

   “It’s the truth, sweetheart.”

   He reached out and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “I’ll tell you what.  Come with me, and I’ll show something.”

   “What?”

   “Ah, just wait.”

   He took her hand and led her across the meadow in a different direction, back toward the inn but then circling a bit southwest of it.  They were on the other side of the Western road now.  Here they were able to pick up a different road, this one pitted and full of ruts, clearly fallen into disuse.

   “Dad, where are we going?”

   “Let’s just say Jefferson isn’t the only one with family history around here.”

   They followed the road across empty farmland where the remains of abandoned barns slumped sideways to the earth.  The road rose a bit, then dipped, and they came to a wide clearing.

   “It looks like a town…or at least what used to be a town,” Helena observed.

   “So it was.  Never one big enough to have a name, though.”

   “What happened to it?”  They were in what had once been the town square.  A well was still standing there.  Helena went to it and experimentally worked the crank.  To her surprise the bucket still pulled up full of water.

   “War.  First the Second Ogre War—the one that happened after the Curse.  And then the War of the Dark Fairy.  This little village turned out to be too close to the crossroads and thus always in the path of whichever army was invading at the time.”

   Helena looked around them at the vacant buildings.  There were less than a dozen of them, some burned, all damaged.

   “And the people?”

   “Fortunately they got very good at fleeing to the woods when an army was approaching, so most of them survived.  But it made it impossible to farm here so most couldn’t stay in the area.  The Spratts are one of the only original families I know of still around.”

   Helena frowned.  “What does a place like this have to do with our family history?”

   “Because you mother and I were married here.  Over there, to be precise.”

   Helena followed his gaze, and looked more closely at the ruin closest to the well.  It had no roof anymore, but the remaining joists seemed to suggest it had been a bit taller than the other buildings around it.

   “I thought the two of you got married in a chapel.”

   Gold chuckled.  “That is a chapel.  Well, it was before the ogres got to it.  It did at least still have a roof when we were married there.  More importantly it had a cleric, which was really all we needed.”

   His daughter gazed at him for a long moment, and at the building.  “I’m sorry, but I just can’t picture it.  Mom always says you were married in a chapel, and that she had a white dress, and that Neal was there…”

   “All absolutely true.”

   “But, Dad, that place is a dump!”

   “I suppose it is.  And I suppose it was then, too.  But we were in the middle of a war, dearie.  Sometimes under harsh circumstances you have to jump at happiness when you can.  So we did.”  He sighed contentedly.  “It was a lovely ceremony, really it was.”

   Helena leaned against the well and folded her arms.  “Uh uh.  You’re not getting away that easily.  Explain,” she demanded.

   “It’s a long story, too long to tell right now.”

   “I have nowhere else to go.”

   Gold recognized the stubborn set of his daughter’s jaw as his own. Gods knew he’d seen it in the mirror enough times.

   He chuckled.  “Very well.  This story starts as all good stories should.

   “And how is that?”

   He smiled at her.

   “Once upon a time…”

 

 

     


End file.
